International audienceThe ‘4 per mille Soils for Food Security and Climate’ was launched at the COP21 with an aspiration to increase global soil organic matter stocks by 4 per 1000 (or 0.4 %) per year as a compensation for the global emissions of greenhouse gases by anthropogenic sources. This paper surveyed the soil organic carbon (SOC) stock estimates and sequestration potentials from 20 regions in the world (New Zealand, Chile, South Africa, Australia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, India, China Taiwan, South Korea, China Mainland, United States of America, France, Canada, Belgium, England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Russia). We asked whether the 4 per mille initiative is feasible for the region. The outcomes highlight region specific efforts and scopes for soil carbon sequestration. Reported soil C sequestration rates globally show that under best management practices, 4 per mille or even higher sequestration rates can be accomplished. High C sequestration rates (up to 10 per mille) can be achieved for soils with low initial SOC stock (topsoil less than 30 t C ha⁻¹), and at the first twenty years after implementation of best management practices. In addition, areas which have reached equilibrium will not be able to further increase their sequestration. We found that most studies on SOC sequestration only consider topsoil (up to 0.3 m depth), as it is considered to be most affected by management techniques. The 4 per mille number was based on a blanket calculation of the whole global soil profile C stock, however the potential to increase SOC is mostly on managed agricultural lands. If we consider 4 per mille in the top 1m of global agricultural soils, SOC sequestration is between 2-3 Gt C year⁻¹, which effectively offset 20–35% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. As a strategy for climate change mitigation, soil carbon sequestration buys time over the next ten to twenty years while other effective sequestration and low carbon technologies become viable. The challenge for cropping farmers is to find disruptive technologies that will further improve soil condition and deliver increased soil carbon. Progress in 4 per mille requires collaboration and communication between scientists, farmers, policy makers, and marketeers

Predicting how species distributions might shift as global climate changes is fundamental to the successful adaptation of conservation policy. An increasing number of studies have responded to this challenge by using climate envelopes, modeling the association between climate variables and species distributions. However, it is difficult to quantify how well species actually match climate. Here, we use null models to show that species-climate associations found by climate envelope methods are no better than chance for 68 of 100 European bird species. In line with predictions, we demonstrate that the species with distribution limits determined by climate have more northerly ranges. We conclude that scientific studies and climate change adaptation policies based on the indiscriminate use of climate envelope methods irrespective of species sensitivity to climate may be misleading and in need of revision.bioclimatic niche ͉ global change ͉ null models ͉ ornithology ͉ species distribution A s global climates warm, some species distributions are moving upward and poleward (1, 2). Predicting how individual species respond to climate change allows assessment of extinction risk and spatial planning of conservation activity (3, 4). Climate envelopes (or the climatic niche concept) are the current methods of choice for prediction of species distributions under climate change and their use is growing rapidly in many areas of ecology (5-7). However, although climate envelope methods and assumptions have been criticized as ecologically and statistically naïve (8, 9), there exists no quantitative evaluation of the importance of these criticisms.Because it is axiomatic that climate influences species distributions (8), the climate envelope approach of matching distributions to climate is intrinsically appealing. However, the use of such simplistic models is risky on both biological and statistical grounds: there are many reasons why species distributions may not match climate, including biotic interactions (10), adaptive evolution (11), dispersal limitation (12), and historical chance (13). Although debate began before the current explosion in climate envelope studies (8, 9), there remains no quantitative information that would allow assessment of how well, or even if, species distributions match climate. Here, we quantify the match of species distributions to environment by generating synthetic species distributions that retain the spatial structure in the observed distributions but are randomly placed with respect to climate.Ideally, the predictions of climate envelope models would be verified on an entirely independent dataset (14, 15) and some attempts have been made at this, both by prediction of the potential distribution of introduced species in new continents (16) or through backward prediction (hindcasting) of prehistoric distributions reconstructed from the fossil record (17). Unfortunately, truly independent data are generally unavailable, so the usefulness of a climate envelope model is typically measured by how well...

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The harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena is the most common cetacean around the British Isles, but knowledge of its ecology, habitat preferences and inter-annual variability is still inadequate. Here, sightings collected by the Sea Watch Foundation during vessel surveys in West Scotland (August during the years 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1997) were critically analysed and used to construct a predictive habitat model for harbour porpoises in the Greater Minch. Generalised additive models were used to analyse relative abundance in relation to environmental variables; a preference for waters within 15 km from the shore and between 50 and 150 m depth was clearly identified. A relationship between tidal variables and porpoise distribution was also recognised with more sightings predicted for high tidal stream speed areas as well as during times of high tide. Maps constructed from the model were used to identify potential 'hotspots'and compare between years. Four areas with high relative abundance were identified in (1) the region between Ardnamurchan, Coll and the Small Isles, (2) southeast of Barra, (3) northeast of Skye to Gairloch, and (4) west of Pairc Peninsula (Isle of Lewis) to Shiant Islands. Number of sightings fluctuated up to 4-fold between consecutive years; such extreme variability in relative abundance is offered as a bench-mark for comparing trends in the future as well as evidence that the Greater Minch represents only a small part of the effective range of this population. KEY WORDS: Phocoena phocoena · Habitat preference · Relative abundance · Inter-annual variability Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 381: [297][298][299][300][301][302][303][304][305][306][307][308][309][310] 2009 being commercial fisheries. Parties to the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas (ASCOBANS) have agreed to work towards reducing by-catch levels to below 1.7% per year of the North Sea porpoise population (ASCO-BANS 2000) to ensure that this species is maintained in a favourable conservation status. Robust estimates of population size are necessary to quantify the impact of by-catch; to this end the large-scale surveys known as SCANS I & II (Small Cetacean Abundance in the North Sea) were carried out in 1994 and again in 2005, during the month of July (Hammond et al. 2002, Hammond & Macleod 2006. In addition, different types of disturbance (e.g. noise, chemical pollutions, aquaculture) might result in temporal redistributions of animals among adjacent areas rather than changes at the population level.For conservation measures to be most effective, greater knowledge of habitat use and habitat preference is highly desirable at a variety of spatial scales from the national to the local spatial scale, especially as spatial planning is becoming the framework for management of human activities within the marine realm (Defra 2006). Furthermore, as the harbour porpoise is on Appendix 2 of the EC Habitats Directive (Council ...

Context Humans structure landscapes for the production of food, fibre and fuel, commonly resulting in declines of non-provisioning ecosystem services (ESs). Heterogeneous landscapes are capable of providing multiple ESs, and landscape configuration-spatial arrangement of land cover in the landscape-is expected to affect ES capacity. However, the majority of ES mapping studies have not accounted for landscape configuration. Objectives Our objective is to assess and quantify the relevance of configuration for mapping ES capacity. A review of empirical evidence for configuration effects on the capacity of ten ESs reveals that for four ESs configuration is relevant but typically ignored in ES quantification. For four ESs we quantify the relevance of configuration for mapping ESs using Scotland as a case study. Methods Each ES was quantified through modelling, respectively ignoring or accounting for configuration. The difference in ES capacity between the two ES models was determined at multiple spatial scales. Results Configuration affected the capacity of all four ESs mapped, particularly at the cell and watershed scale. At the scale of Scotland most local effects averaged out. Flood control and sediment retention responded strongest to configuration. ESs were affected by different aspects of configuration, thus requiring specific methods for mapping each ES. Conclusions Accounting for configuration is important for the assessment of certain ESs at the cell and watershed scale. Incorporating configuration in landscape management provides opportunities for spatial optimization of ES capacity, but the diverging response of ESs to configuration suggests that accounting for configuration involves trade-offs between ESs.

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